VMware Enlists Ixia to Help Build NSX Ecosystem

Certifying compatibility with virtual network overlays is an expensive proposition because of all the time and expense associated with setting up all the physical equipment. To reduce those costs Ixia, a unit of Keysight Technologies that provides testing tools, has collaborated with VMware on the development of a set of testing tools aimed at providers of network equipment that need to certify compatibility with VMware NSX network virtualization software.

That testing suite will soon also be made available to enterprise IT organizations and the solution provider community that serves them, says Bill Queen, director of business development and strategy for Ixia.

“This approach means network equipment vendors don’t have to bring their equipment to a specific laboratory,” says Queen.

VMware has made it clear that much of its future is riding on adoption of NSX. The problem is that Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) approach to network virtualization has emerged as the primary competitor to NSX. The Cisco approach is anchored around selling a next generation series of switches that come embedded with support for ACI. VMware to counter Cisco needs as rival providers of networking infrastructure to support NSX as possible. A big part of achieving that goal is making it simpler for those networking equipment manufacturers to attain NSX certification.

It’s too early to say whether VMware will succeed. The company says it now has over 4,500 customers and over 60 service providers using NSX. As large as that might be, Cisco this week noted it has now more than 5,800 customers using the latest generation of its Catalyst switch series.

There’s little doubt that the battle between VMware and Cisco is largely going to fought in the channel. Many solution providers are allied with both companies, so getting them to lean more one way than the other is pivotal for both companies. But unless VMware can create a massive NSX ecosystem, it would appear that Cisco, for now, enjoys the inside track in terms of an installed networking customer base compared to a VMware customer base that is still very much tied to hypervisors deployed mainly on x86 servers.